


love, a question has destroyed you

by darkficdarkric



Series: what grows beyond these walls [1]
Category: Moonlight Garden (Webcomic)
Genre: ....make that 5000 words, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, F/F, Flower Maiden Dynamics (Moonlight Garden), Forced Prostitution, Fuck Or Die, Non-Consensual Drug Use, someday i will write smut without 3000 words of exposition first but it is not this day.....
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-18 22:07:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29497017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkficdarkric/pseuds/darkficdarkric
Summary: Threats, a knife, and a dead woman's research aren't all that Dohwa receives while held prisoner by the Suh family."Love, a questionhas destroyed you.I have come back to youfrom thorny uncertainty.I want you straight asthe sword or the road.But you insiston keeping a nookof shadow that I do not want."title from the poem "the question" by pablo neruda
Relationships: Lee Dohwa/Suh Yoosun
Series: what grows beyond these walls [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2166672
Comments: 6
Kudos: 9





	1. Chapter 1

Suh Hwayoung dropped Dohwa and the knife, letting it clatter to the prison floor alongside her. She clicked her tongue in disgust. 

_"This_ is why you maidens are meant to go through a proper coming-of-age ceremony. A wretched, willful creature such as you couldn't be allowed to lead astray the precious, empty headed daughters of the nobility, after all. But it seems you've already managed that. Suh Hyewon, Ha Yunwoo, my Yoosun, what an influential list of clients you have wrapped around your little finger. What a sly and cunning thing you are." 

"Did you know," Hwayoung continued, kneeling down and wrenching Dohwa's chin up to face her with one hand while the other grabbed her by the hair. "That the Suh family was able to develop a remarkable drug with the use of your mother's research?" 

She forced Dohwa's mouth open and shoved a small capsule down her throat, yanking her head back by her hair to force her to swallow. 

Hwayoung's voice turned sickeningly sweet. "Until recently, a Flower Maiden's Blooms, after the first, of course, were messy, unpredictable things. Only in the oh, past five years or so has this changed. Come now, you've never had the sense to hold your tongue before. Would you care to hazard a guess as to _why_ that is, Lee Dohwa?" 

Hwayoung clicked her tongue thoughtfully, as Dohwa's eyes widened in horror and she desperately tried to cough up the pill in her throat. "What could be _done_ , do you suppose, to ensure every Flower Maiden bloomed on schedule, down to the _hour_ , for the petty entertainments of young noblewomen?" 

_"No,_ " Dohwa gasped, still desperately trying to cough, gag, induce vomiting, _anything_ to expel the poison Hwayoung just forced on her.

"If administered properly, it ensures Blooming takes place within six hours. It was meant to be dispensed to you as well, but it seems the disobedience you have sown in my daughter runs _deeply._ A surprise to be sure, considering how she looked forward to hosting your coming of age in Hyewon's place." 

Dohwa grit her teeth, eyes blazing with indignation. "Am I supposed to be grateful to her for that? That she didn't drug and rape me at the first opportunity?"

_"Gratitude_ is but the least of what you should feel, that you have received the condescension of my daughter. Were it not for her love of you, I would have given you the dose of Blooming Poison that you _deserve,"_ Hwayoung snapped. She paused, a long, slow smile working its way across her face as she once more took Dohwa's chin in hand.

"Interestingly, this medicine has _dramatic_ effects if given at a higher dosage. _"_ Hwayoung paused significantly. 

"Did you not ever think it _suspicious_ , how the Lotus Maiden entered her Full Bloom _so soon_ after Hyewon threatened her to you?" 

_"She didn't!"_ Dohwa protested, a trembling, quivering mess of grief and rage. Hyewon was many things, and at her worst she had been arrogant and even _cruel_ , but she was a truly terrible liar. Hyewon simply could not have held her close, or comforted her, or promised to help her in Yunhwa's final days if she had been the one responsible. 

"Of course not. The Lotus Maiden was a test for when the poison was meant to be used on Hyewon herself. That child has never made anything useful of herself, and now she never will. She is too _soft,_ for the life Yoosun is meant to lead, and like a cancer, that softness grew, too, in my Yoosun. It will be cut out of her soon enough. She will learn to bend, as she always has. But you, _you,_ Lee Dohwa, wretched, unruly child that you are, must be made to _break."_

_"I'll die first,"_ Dohwa snarled, wrenching out of Hwayoung's grip and taking up the fallen knife, stabbing it toward her own neck. 

Hwayoung caught her by the wrist, the knife scant centimeters from her throat.

"Oh, you will soon enough, wild thing, if you refuse Yoosun. I wonder, how long into the Bloom will you still be able to hold on to that pride of yours… An hour? A day? A week, at most, before you will be begging for the touch of any woman who will have you." 

She leaned in close, whispering in Dohwa's ear. "And if you are very lucky, and very good, it will _only_ be my daughter who attends to you." 

She shoved Dohwa away and into the prison wall, taking the knife with her as she calmly made her way out of the cell and locked it. 

Hwayoung paused outside the door, her back to Dohwa. "Of course, it's of little concern to me if you instead choose to Bloom your last. If I allow you to make the choice at all, that is." She gestured over her shoulder with the knife. 

"After all, what a terrible _waste_ it would be to have to put down a wild thing." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Moonlight Garden pretended like it was gonna be super fucked up, given the premise, but then it consistently flinched at actually being fucked up. I'm here to manually re-fuck it. You're welcome. 
> 
> PS: smut to follow.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It is I, my love,  
> who knocks at your door.  
> It is not the ghost, it is not  
> the one who once stopped  
> at your window.  
> I knock down the door:  
> I enter your life:  
> I come to live in your soul:  
> you cannot cope with me.
> 
> -the question, by pablo neruda

It took far longer to calm herself down than Dohwa liked. If Hwayoung had been telling the truth, she only had a scant few hours before she would start going out of her mind with the Bloom, maybe less. 

_If._

The capsule she’d been forced to take might do nothing. Or it might do something _far worse._ As an apothecary, Dohwa knew well that any number of concoctions could make her miserable without risking her life. 

Not that there were many options that would be worse than going into Bloom _here,_ where she would be at the dubious mercies of those she so despised. 

As tempting it had been in the moment, to take her own life and make a curse and a ruin of everything that _evil_ woman had worked for… 

Dohwa did not want to die.

_“I will live a long life, and think of you for many seasons to come.”_

That was the promise she had made, as Yunhwa-unnie’s ashes had been scattered to the four winds. That was the promise of a life her parents had died to give her. 

She was her mother’s daughter. And here was her mother’s life’s work before her, hacked to pieces, soaked in places with Dohwa’s own tears, but it was here. Still her mother’s script, so worn and familiar and painstakingly neat, still legible in places, if only she could piece it together.

She would not be a poison; she would be the antidote. 

She would not bring death and ruin; she would bring life and hope.

Her hands were her mother’s hands, callused from long hours spent harvesting herbs and flowers and making medicine. They would continue her mother’s work. They would save her, and Hyewon, and every other Flower Maiden trapped behind Moonlight Garden’s walls.

Soon, someone would come to take even these scraps of hope from her mother’s journal away and bind her wrists in chains once more. Soon, the poison in her veins would send her into an agony words could not describe.

But not yet.

And not without a fight.

Until violence or poison forced her to her knees, she would take as many of her mother’s words as she could puzzle together, and carry them in her heart...

It was the Bloom that overtook her first, hours into the painstaking work of repairing her mother’s journals, settling over her like a summer storm, the air itself suddenly too hot, too tight against her skin.

It was unmistakable, the heat and haze radiating out from the seed on her neck unlike any cold or fever. Undeniable, but not unbearable. Not yet.

The smooth strokes of her mother’s calligraphy began to smear, no longer from dripping tears but from her own blurring, dizzying vision. With trembling hands she carefully gathered all the pieces together regardless of size or order, clutching them desperately to her chest. 

She curled into a ball, burying her face in her arms and hugging her knees to her front.

No matter how much her heart pounded in her ears, in her head, like a hammer on an anvil, or slick heat pooled between her legs, or how much the barest friction of her thighs rubbing together as she hugged herself made her _ache--_

If anyone tried to take the journal pages, or… _her,_ she’d bite their fingers off if she had to, kick and scream and claw and fight. 

Even if it was Yoosun. 

_“Especially_ if it’s Yoosun,” Dohwa snarled to herself, biting her lip so hard it bled-- at least _that_ pain was different from the pain of the Bloom, a shock to the senses that abated the ache, just the slightest. 

“It’s comforting that you’re still thinking of me now even though I know you hate me,” a sickeningly familiar voice murmured, soft but somehow cutting through the overwhelming thrum of her own heartbeat, pounding too hard, too high, too fast in her skull, in her chest, in her--

“I _despise_ you,” Dohwa snapped, screwing her eyes shut and cursing herself as her whole form listed slightly forward, drawn towards the familiar and the promise of _relief--_

She snapped her head up, glaring daggers at the source of the sound, desperately cutting off that thought before it could take root.

Yoosun was _not an option._

Across the cell, just inside the bars was Yoosun, a slight, sad smile on her face as she simply sat there. Watching her. 

“How long,” Dohwa paused to gasp, her pulse skyrocketing, her breaths coming hot and heavy and shuddering through her whole body now, as if the poison was _reacting_ to Yoosun’s very presence, without even a single touch or suggestive word. 

It was revolting. She wanted to die.

_“How long have you been sitting there?”_ Dohwa snapped in a single breath, digging her fingernails into her arms. She would not _want_ , she would not _need,_ she was _not a kisaeng,_ and she would take _nothing_ that Yoosun offered her.

“A little while. I didn’t want to frighten you,” Yoosun replied, her tone as gentle as she had always pretended to be, the same sad smile on her face, unchanging.

“I--” Dohwa bit down on her tongue as another pulse shuddered through her, dug her nails further into her skin, drawing blood twice over with her own teeth and nails. “I-I _hate_ you. I _pity_ you. I think you’re _p-pathetic._ I don’t need you. I w-would _n-never_ be afraid of s-someone like you.” 

At some point she'd started crying again, from rage or hate or frustration she didn't know.

“Even that is comforting, in a way,” Yoosun said softly, unwavering, her expression as placid as it had been since she entered the room. 

“I came as soon as I’d heard what Aunt had given you,” she added. “She was quite unhappy with me, that I wouldn’t be making you wait.” 

“I…” Dohwa hiccuped, taking a moment to breathe through her tears and steady herself. “...would rather _die_ than give myself to you.”

It was even mostly true. While she had no intentions of dying any time soon, as torturous as the Bloom was, as it would _become,_ given time _,_ she had at least a few days before it would begin to slowly kill her. 

Hyewon was safe with Yunwoo, and the two of them would find a way to come for her, too, soon enough. 

She would survive.

But to accept Yoosun’s help would be a far more immediate kind of death.

Yoosun frowned at her, as if she were behaving like a spoiled _child._ “You’re hurting yourself. Please don’t suffer just to spite me, Dohwa.” 

“I very nearly slit my own throat just to spite you, earlier,” Dohwa spat. It wasn’t _entirely_ true, and it definitely wasn’t true any longer-- she had no intentions of dying now that she was-- no, she definitely was _not_ more in control of herself or thinking more rationally now than she had been then when she had raised the knife to Suh Hwayoung. 

But it wasn’t entirely a lie, either. She had just _so badly wanted for that woman to die,_ and hadn’t particularly cared if she and Yoosun and a great deal of innocents died to do it. 

_That_ finally got a reaction out of Yoosun, her composure not so much crumbling as _shattering_ as she surged to her feet and across the room in an instant. 

_“Lee Dohwa,”_ Yoosun snapped, angry and afraid and hoarse like she was on the verge of tears herself as she slammed her palm against the wall behind them. “ _Never_ do something like that again.” 

Dohwa had never hated anything so much as the thrill that went up her spine in that moment. Yoosun, looming over her, _so close,_ and still not nearly close enough. If she would just reach out and _touch_ her--

**_No!_ **

“You killed Yunhwa-unnie, what’s another Flower Maiden’s death on your conscience?” Dohwa snapped. 

_Think of the grief, think of how it felt like your heart was torn in two, it was too soon, she could have lived, she should have lived! She deserved a long and happy life,_ **_I should have been able to save her--_ **

Yoosun went perfectly still. “Dohwa,” she said, slowly, carefully, as if Dohwa had just held a knife to her throat. “I have killed on Aunt’s orders before, this is true. But I have never raised a hand against your sister. Joo Yunhwa died of natural causes.”

“And I’m supposed to believe the liar and the murderer?” Dohwa hissed. 

She kept trying to cling to something, anything that would keep her from clinging to _Yoosun,_ and _it wasn’t working._

All her grief, all her rage, all her _everything_ kept slipping out of her grasp. It was all she could do to keep the worst, most traitorous parts of her silent, keep herself still-- and even _that_ was only making herself bleed for her efforts. 

_This_ _isn’t working._

Yoosun was too close, she could feel her warmth, her breath, _so close--_

One word, and this woman she so despised would take away all her pain-- 

“No,” Yoosun said softly, leaning in ever so slightly closer. “No, I suppose you wouldn’t. And I don’t particularly care if you do anymore. But I’m not going to allow you to keep hurting yourself.”

Those were dangerous, frightening, _relieving_ words, she couldn’t let them stand-- 

“I don’t care what you _allow--_ ” Dohwa snapped, cut off as Yoosun leaned in and kissed her, tasting her own blood in Yoosun’s mouth.

She _hated it._ She really, _really hated_ it, as every nerve in her body, every drop of her traitorous, poisoned blood lit up like the sun with blistering heat that immediately melted into pleasure. 

_What does it matter? Isn’t this what you were made to do? This was always meant to be your fate, wasn’t it._

It wasn’t what she needed, what she so desperately, desperately needed, but it was a _start--_

She started crying again, _(had she ever stopped?)_ self-loathing and sheer _relief_ at war within her as Yoosun pulled back to wipe away her tears. 

It was too much. _It wasn’t nearly enough._

She hated it, hated _Yoosun,_ hated _herself,_ so very, very much right now.

_“Don’t touch me!”_ Dohwa screamed. For the first time in what felt like hours she unclenched her arms, shoving Yoosun back by the shoulders and-- 

Yoosun caught her by both wrists. “Dohwa, _please,_ you’re bleeding _,_ ” she pleaded, staring at the long gashes Dohwa’s nails had scored into her forearms. 

Dohwa struggled uselessly in her grip, still screaming. _“I hate you! Don’t touch me!”_

It wouldn’t matter. Who would help her? She was a Flower Maiden, a _kisaeng,_ and the Suh family’s prisoner; she had nothing. And Yoosun, acting as head in Hyewon’s place, had _everything._

“Wait…” Yoosun’s gaze flicked to the papers Dohwa had bundled so carefully to her chest. She pushed Dohwa’s wrists together and pinned them to the wall with one hand, while the other tugged one of the journal pages free to examine it. 

“Your mother’s journal. You wouldn’t have done this to something so precious. Aunt did this, didn’t she.” 

“Please don’t take it away,” Dohwa said hoarsely, hating how weak her voice sounded. Now her throat hurt, too. Even with all her efforts, all she had accomplished in holding herself back from the Bloom was a pile of minor irritations. 

Yoosun’s expression turned considering. “If I promise to let you keep these papers, will you let me help you?” 

_She’s giving me a way out. Trying to assuage my pride. I hate her. I hate her so much._

“Your promises mean less than nothing to me,” Dohwa snapped. She wouldn’t even consider it. _She wouldn’t._

But even just the weight, the _friction_ of her clothes against her skin was beginning to be too much. Her wrists _burned,_ at that single point of contact where Yoosun held them against the wall. And still that ever present heat, pooling at the very center of her person, threatening to choke her lungs with her own poison if she refused it for too long.

“I don’t want to see you suffer, Dohwa,” Yoosun said softly.

_How dare she._

“Liar. Murderer. _Traitor,”_ Dohwa hissed. “ _You sabotaged my antidote. You_ are the only reason I’m suffering at all. I hate you. I want nothing to do with you. Or do you plan to assault me, and add that to the list of monstrous things that you are?”

Yoosun shifted closer, snatching the precious bundle of papers from Dohwa’s lap, and setting them aside before she could react.

She tugged Dohwa’s pinned wrists down from the wall and leaned in, trapping their hands between them as she rested her forehead against Dohwa’s.

“If I must,” she said, her free hand coming up to caress Dohwa’s cheek.

Despite herself, Dohwa shivered. It took everything she had not to lean into that hand, to chase that tenderness and all the caresses that would surely come after. If she asked it of her, she had no doubt that Yoosun would be as gentle with her as she always pretended to be. 

Maybe Yoosun really did love her-- but it was a love she wanted no part of. 

“Lay your hands on me again and I swear I’ll hate you til the day I die,” Dohwa croaked. 

Yoosun just smiled, tucking a stray lock of hair behind Dohwa’s ear as Dohwa tried to pull away from her.

“Then beloved, I hope you will hate me for many years to come,” she said, bittersweet, as she leaned in to kiss Dohwa once again.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You must open door to door,  
> you must obey me,  
> you must open your eyes  
> so that I may search in them,  
> you must see how I walk  
> with heavy steps  
> along all the roads  
> that, blind, were waiting for me.
> 
> from "the question" by pablo neruda

If Yoosun wasn’t still holding her wrists, Dohwa would have slapped her. Maybe even tried to claw her eyes out too, while she was at it. It would be no less than she deserved.

But instead she was trapped as Yoosun kissed her harder, pressed her closer, forced Dohwa's back against the wall and crushed them together, pinning Dohwa's hands between them.

“I'll give you what you need, Dohwa," Yoosun said softly as she pulled back, running her fingers through Dohwa's hair. She stayed close, close enough they were sharing breaths, Yoosun resting her forehead against hers. 

_“Stop it,”_ Dohwa snapped after she caught her breath. “I don't want your help. I don't want _anything_ from you.”

Every point of contact _burned_ , sent the treacherous poison in her blood thrumming, _singing_ for more _,_ and Yoosun surely knew that, pressing them as close together as their positions allowed. 

The more Yoosun touched her, the longer this went on, the easier it would be to give in to the Bloom, the harder it would be to refuse her...

And Yoosun surely knew that, too.

Dohwa tried to turn away, tried to put some space between them but there was nowhere to go, pressed between the prison wall and Yoosun's hands-- hands that tightened around her wrists, held her by her hair. 

Eventually, she might have been able to break that wall. But Yoosun would never let her go. 

“This isn’t about _want,_ though, is it,” Yoosun replied, stroking down from Dohwa’s hair to her neck, pressing her thumb to the seed Blooming there. 

Dohwa gasped, shuddering as liquid heat coursed through her, pulsing from where Yoosun had literally put her under her thumb. 

“This is about what you _need_.” 

She grabbed Dohwa's collar, tugging it open and down over her shoulders, fingers tracing the path of budding flowers down her neck and over her collarbone with something approaching reverence _._

_"Stop it,"_ Dohwa demanded, still trembling under her touch.

Yoosun ignored her.

_And then she untied the laces of Dohwa's undershirt._

She bit down on Dohwa's seed, making Dohwa gasp and squirm beneath her, and then she trailed openmouthed kisses down, down, down from her throat to her breast, taking her nipple into her mouth and _sucking_.

_"Damn you,”_ Dohwa sobbed, shifting and kicking to try and push Yoosun off of her, crying out in conflicted frustration and relief as Yoosun held her firmly in place _and finally touched her properly._

Yoosun released her nipple with a slick _pop_ , leaning up to nip Dohwa’s ear as her free hand found its way to her hip, tugging at her skirts. “I would hardly need to touch you at all to make you fall apart now. Will you let me, Dohwa?”

It hurt just to breathe now, the poison burning in her lungs and in her blood, pulsing in time with the unbearable heat curled tight in her belly.

“M-my answer is st-- _still_ _the same,_ ” Dohwa stammered, hating how she couldn't keep her voice steady, hating how she quivered under Yoosun's touch, hating how her insides still clenched traitorously with need. “I w-would-- _I would_ _rather die._ ” 

“Yes, you’ve made that quite clear,” Yoosun replied, having the gall to sound fond _,_ almost _amused_ as she reached up to ruffle Dohwa’s hair. “That’s so very like you.”

And then Yoosun released her hands, pulling away to remove the weighted chain at her feet.

“What are you doing?” Dohwa demanded, shoving down the aching, throbbing, unbearable _need_ still rising within her as she tugged her clothes back into place, hugging herself and pressing her back against the wall to put as much distance between her and Yoosun as possible.

“Dohwa,” Yoosun said gently, crouching before her and caressing her cheek as Dohwa flinched away. “If I’m going to properly make love to you, it won't be on a prison floor and in another woman’s clothes.”

_“Yoosun-unnie,_ ” Dohwa said softly, horror and revulsion rising in her throat, now overcome with a trembling entirely separate from the Bloom. _“No.”_

Yoosun smiled at her fondly. “You called me _unnie_ again. I’m glad. But that won’t save you, I’m afraid,” she said, retrieving the same green silk and manacles she’d used to bind Dohwa’s wrists earlier. 

_“I said no, unnie!”_ Dohwa screamed, jerking away as Yoosun seized her hand. 

“I know,” Yoosun replied, pinning her forearm across Dohwa’s collarbone to hold her in place.

“You also said that you would rather die. And I would gladly do far more terrible things than this to keep you safely here, unhappy, but unbroken and _alive_ , Dohwa."

_"That is not your choice to make!"_

Yoosun just took Dohwa’s other hand in hers, pressing a kiss to the inside of her wrist before wrapping it in silk and chaining Dohwa’s hands in front of her.

"You've refused to make a reasonable choice, so now I'll be making my own choices," Yoosun snapped, tugging Dohwa into her arms and off her feet into a princess carry, clutching her to her chest so that Dohwa could hardly move, hardly _breathe,_ Yoosun's arms so tight around her knees, around her ribs.

“What if-- what if I run away again?” Dohwa protested desperately as Yoosun carried her out of the cell, squirming as much as she could in that ruthless grip. “You promised that-- that _awful woman_ that you would lock me away properly.”

“Dohwa,” Yoosun said patiently, _amused_ at Dohwa's desperation as she carried her into the estate's main house, down a series of hallways until she came to a stop in front of a large, locked door. “I have no intention of leaving you able to _walk_. No, I’m not worried about you running away.”

_"Please don't do this, unnie,"_ Dohwa pleaded, softly weeping and clutching at Yoosun's front with chained and trembling hands, burying her face in Yoosun's shoulder. _"Please."_

_Oh_ it hurt to say that, hurt her pride, hurt her Bloom addled senses that _thrilled_ at every touch, at Yoosun's strong arms around her, at the promise of _more_ and blessed, blessed relief from the sweet and poisonous agony in the very heart of her.

"I never wanted this to be how I made you cry and beg for me," Yoosun murmured, pressing a kiss to the top of her head as she unlocked the door. "But I refuse to make you wait, make you suffer until you bend and break for me, even knowing how much this frightens you."

"So you would replace one hurt with another, then," Dohwa retorted, turning her head away. "As if it was your choice to make."

"A hurt that I know, that I control, that I can give you as sweetly and gently as possible," Yoosun said softly, nudging the door closed once they were inside, leaning back against it as she clutched Dohwa closer. "Or whatever misery Aunt would devise for you in my place, Dohwa? That is not a choice at all." 

"It's still a choice," Dohwa snapped. "And once again, you have chosen to hurt me. Just as you always have." 

"Yes, I suppose I have," Yoosun said softly, setting Dohwa down on the bed. 

Dohwa shivered despite herself at the loss of contact, unconsciously leaning forward, following her as Yoosun pulled away. 

_Needy._

Yoosun smiled, reaching down to ruffle Dohwa's hair. 

_Damn her._ She'd noticed. _She'd noticed._

And then to her surprise, Yoosun unlocked the manacles, unwound the silk bindings, and walked away, leaving her bereft. _H_ _ad she changed her mind?_ The _liar--_

Dohwa forced that traitorous thought down as Yoosun returned with a washbasin and cloth. 

"Good, the bleeding stopped," Yoosun noted, taking Dohwa's hand and rolling up her sleeve, wiping away the dried blood from the long scratches Dohwa had scored in her own arms earlier. 

...She'd forgotten about that. 

Gently, Yoosun repeated the process on Dohwa's other arm, then set the cloth and basin aside. 

Piece by piece, she took off her jewelry, her wig, and her many, many layers until she had stripped down to her underclothes. 

"Not going to chain me up again?" Dohwa snapped, stumbling and falling back on her elbows when Yoosun approached, looming over her. 

Yoosun shook her head, her placid, enigmatic smile firmly in place. "They'd just make it harder to undress you." 

"I'll scream," Dohwa warned, stumbling further back onto the bed. 

"You will," Yoosun _infuriatingly_ agreed, crawling over her. 

"I'll bite you, I'll kick and scratch and try and stab out your eyes--" 

"You may try to," Yoosun replied, pushing Dohwa down and pressing her into the bed with her weight. 

"But I really don't need chains to have my way with you Dohwa," she said, seizing her by the hair and kissing her deeply. 

And true to her word, Dohwa bit her when Yoosun shoved her tongue into her mouth, grimly satisfied when she tasted blood. 

Yoosun pulled away, grinning as she wiped off her mouth. 

"You did warn me," she said fondly, her soft laughter immediately ruining Dohwa's petty victory. 

_I hate her. I don't want this,_ **_I hate her--_ **

Yoosun clicked her tongue in annoyance, then, as Dohwa turned away from her.

"I understand," she said, suddenly sarcastic and falsely thoughtful as she seized Dohwa's wrists in both hands, pinning them on either side of her head.

Dohwa's heart dropped like a stone. She knew the voice that Yoosun was putting on for her.

"Forgive me, you must want something more stimulating after all the teasing that we've done-- I know how impatient you Flower Maidens can be."

Dohwa gasped, choking back a sob and a moan as Yoosun straddled her, knees tight around her hips and _pressing--_

"Why," Dohwa stopped, panting and desperately trying to fill her lungs with breaths that _would not come--_

"'Why?'" Yoosun prompted innocently, grinding down with her hips, making Dohwa shiver and stutter beneath her. 

_"Why_..." Dohwa stubbornly repeated. "...are you still pretending to be the mistress?" 

Yoosun immediately froze, so Dohwa seized her chance to twist the knife.

"I thought you were so kind before. But even at her worst, she was _never_ as cruel as this." 

"Maybe not," Yoosun agreed, her placid smile slowly turning into something cold and _wicked_. 

"But she did do _this,"_ she snapped, releasing Dohwa's hands in favor of tearing open Dohwa's _hanbok_ and _jeogori_ and wrestling them off of her as Dohwa kicked and screamed beneath her. 

And then she… _stopped._

Waited. 

Watched her with wide eyes, panting, catching her breath as one hand held Dohwa’s wrists above her head, and the other _shook,_ hovering over the laces of Dohwa's last layer of clothing, 

Staring like a sleepwalker who found they had woken up just before doing something terrible.

Dohwa looked away, her bangs falling over her eyes as she turned her cheek onto the pillow. “Well? This is what you’ve always wanted, isn’t it?” she mumbled. “To play at being the mistress and force me to play your _kisaeng?_ ” 

“No,” Yoosun said hoarsely, the hand at Dohwa’s stays coming up to caress her cheek. “None of this is what I wanted for you.”

“Then _stop,_ ” Dohwa pleaded, leaning into the touch as it almost seemed like Yoosun was about to cry. _“Please._ I’ll be alright. _You can still stop,_ _Yoosun-unnie.”_

It physically pained her to say, to beg for something other than relief when it was so close at hand.

"No," Yoosun repeated softly, head hung low, her short hair falling forward to hide her face.

“I don’t think I can do that anymore.” 

And then her hand was at the laces, pulling away the last barrier between them.

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Moonlight Garden pretended like it was gonna be super fucked up, given the premise, but then it consistently flinched at actually being fucked up. I'm here to manually re-fuck it. You're welcome. 
> 
> PS: smut to follow.


End file.
